Various systems and methodologies have been proposed for automatic or semi-automatic dissemination and distribution of a message to a designated list or other group of individuals. Some of these systems have been designed for specific purposes such as emergency or alarm-type notifications, and may be activated from a touch-tone telephone using a caller's pass code. When the caller's identity has been verified, one system requests a list of individuals to be notified by telephone or pager, and the caller may choose a prerecorded message or record a new message for transmission to the list of individuals. The system then accesses the telephone and/or pager numbers associated with the list of individuals and commences a calling cycle. Natural disasters, unusual demand and human error can impact telephone service availability and hence can thwart the effectiveness of such systems. During such extreme conditions, the telephone network capacity may be disrupted such that the emergency or alarm-type notifications may not be completed by the system.